Sacred Sports Foundation's Approach to Football & Girls

19 January 2017

Sacred Sports Foundation (SSF), a member of the streetfootballworld network that is a sustainable youth development catalyst for change in St. Lucia and the Caribbean, is committed to using football as a means of helping young girls and women grow. As such, they’ve openly criticised the ways in which young girls and women are often approached when regarding the offering of sports programs.

SSF executive director Nova Alexander has recognised the prevailing research pointing to the fact that sports programs positively impact the lives of young women, leading to higher attendance rates, better grades, and better behaviour. “So why, then, do so many of our teachers, coaches, and mentors use sports as the stick rather than as the carrot,” she asks, “I would be a rich woman if I had a dollar for every time that I’ve heard an adult threaten to stop a girl from participating in sports because they misbehaved or done something wrong.”

In fact, SSF has written out their own understanding of the ways in which young girls and women should have access to sports so as to better both their own chances of success, as well as their communities. You can find it here: